Newsletter

Trial opens for Jacksonville Beach killing; Stand Your Ground denied for 21-year-old who shot man in the back during drug deal

William Henry Brown, 21, is led from the holding cell to another room in the back of the courtroom to finish getting ready for his trial Tuesday morning. He said he shot Joshua Register in self-defense during a drug-deal robbery attempt in Jacksonville Beach in 2011. Brown tried to use the Stand Your Ground defense but it was rejected because he was engaged in an illegal act when the shooting occurred.

A Jacksonville judge and an appellate court both dismissed the idea that William Henry Brown was acting in self-defense when he shot and killed Joshua Register. So it will be up to a jury to decide if Brown should spend the rest of his life in prison.

The murder trial of Brown, 21, began Tuesday. Prosecutors said Brown shot the 33-year-old Register twice in the back in a condominium complex parking lot on 25th Avenue South in Jacksonville Beach in October 2011.

Brown and Register were both part of a drug deal that went bad after Register and two other men tried to steal 6 pounds of marijuana from Brown that was worth about $18,000, said Assistant State Attorney London Kite.

Upon realizing that Register had taken advantage of him, Brown ordered Register to get on the ground and shot him, Kite said.

“While many were celebrating Florida-Georgia weekend, this defendant was part of a drug transaction,” Kite said to jurors during opening statements. “William Brown shot Joshua Register not because he had too, but because he wanted too.”

Register was unarmed when he was shot, Kite said.

Brown, who was 18 at the time, was tracked down in California. The other two people involved, Adam Holleran and Matthew Webber, both 30, have pleaded guilty to grand theft and are expected to testify against Brown.

Defense attorney Waffa Hanania told jurors that Holleran and Webber were the key witnesses in the case and both have reason to lie.

The duo originally faced criminal charges as accessories after the fact that could have put them in jail for 35 to 45 years. But with the plea deals they are likely to only get five years or less in prison, Hanania said.

The two also claim they took the marijuana and left before the murder occurred, and it’s convenient that their stories absolve them of any blame for Register’s death, Hanania said.

Brown originally invoked Stand Your Ground, arguing that he was acting in self-defense when he shot Register. That claim was rejected by both Circuit Judge Tatiana Salvador and the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee because Brown was involved in a criminal act when the shooting occurred.

The Stand Your Ground law says people who are committing a crime cannot claim self-defense.

Larry Hannan: (904) 359-4470

Trial opens for Jacksonville Beach killing; Stand Your Ground denied for 21-year-old who shot man in the back during drug deal- By